After more than a year of urging Congress to take action with regard to immigration reform, President Obama has indicated that enough is enough, giving a fiery speech yesterday in which he declared that Congress’s failure meant it was time for him to take action alone on the issue.
“The failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our furniture,” Obama told the American public. “If Congress won’t do their job, at least we can do ours.” The president sent a letter to Congress in which he laid out the steps taken in recent weeks by his administration to respond to the unprecedented increase in the number of unaccompanied immigrant minors crossing the border from Central America.
Over 40,000 children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been caught attempting to illegally enter the United States so far this year, with Obama mobilizing a number of federal agencies to house the minors and process them through the deportation system. Obama slammed the response of the Republican party to the crisis, which he described as using it as its “newest excuse to do nothing” about immigration reform.
“Their argument seems to be that because the system is broken, we shouldn’t make an effort to fix it,” the president noted. “It makes no sense. It’s not on the level.” Critics have attacked his speech, saying it proves that his actions are only about doing what is best for the Democrats rather than the US.